Looking over voter registration lists, Quan and her supporters are trying to find out which candidates Oakland voters are likely to support for mayor in November. Even a seasoned campaigner like Quan, Oakland’s City Council District 4 representative, comes across a few surprises. “A Green, an Independent and a Republican—all in one apartment!” she says with amazement. Not your typical house in a city that’s 69 percent registered Democrats.

It’s more than eight months until Election Day, and Mayor Ron Dellums has not announced whether he intends to run for another four-year term. But Quan is already walking precincts, starting in North and East Oakland. She’s introducing herself to voters beyond the Laurel, Montclair and Diamond neighborhoods she represented on the School Board for 12 years and has represented on the City Council since 2002.

Quan has more than 400 campaign volunteers so far and says she wants to build her campaign around a grassroots strategy. Her main opponent to date, Oakland’s former State Senate representative Don Perata, has a major door-to-door campaign event planned for February 27, but Quan’s team has been more aggressive about neighborhood outreach in the campaign’s early months. The councilwoman says she needs to do this in part because she anticipates Perata will have more financial resources at his disposal.

Perata outpaced Quan in campaign contributions by an almost two-to-one margin in 2009. He is also tapping funding sources based on political capital he developed in Sacramento during his tenure as State Senate president. For example, supporters of a California cigarette tax ballot initiative have sent out materials to Oakland residents highlighting Perata’s efforts on this anti-cancer initiative, a move that helps keep his name in front of voters.

Quan says she fully expects Perata to outspend her, but still believes she will raise enough money to win. “I’m never going to raise as much as Don, but I’ll raise enough,” Quan says. “I’ve won elections where I was outspent two-to-one. This race will depend on whether grassroots efforts can beat big money.”

This grassroots strategy hinges on meeting voters directly and raising small amounts of money from donors. Quan and her volunteers—led by her husband Floyd Huen, a Berkeley physician—started knocking on doors late last year. Quan spends several nights a week meeting Oakland voters on their porches and in their foyers—or sometimes just meeting their dogs through a screen door. She believes the face-to-face dynamic is still possible in a city the size of Oakland, and says she develops some of her best ideas through these dialogues with potential voters.

Can Quan and her team meet all 195,000 of Oakland’s registered voters personally? Probably not, she admits, but that’s not stopping her from trying. “I’m a great grassroots candidate—I’m going to talk to a lot of voters,” Quan says. “I’ve run for School Board on nothing. I’m very used to doing these heavily volunteer, all-ground campaigns.”

On this evening in Rockridge, several doorbells go unanswered as people are still returning home from work. Quan does catch some voters, however. She has a chance to talk about school curriculum with a Chabot Elementary parent and Cleveland politics with a recent transplant from Ohio. Every door holds the potential for an impromptu public policy pop quiz.

“What’s your plan for business in Oakland?” asks Jason Knight, the owner of a Grand Avenue apparel store.

“We’re marketing Oakland as a city of neighborhoods,” Quan says. “Look at what we’ve done in the Diamond District [in Quan’s City Council area]. We’ve brought down crime and made it easier for banks to lend. We’re making changes block by block—that’s where it starts.”

Knight listens intently for a few minutes. He tells Quan he hasn’t made up his mind about how he’s voting in November.

At several doors, Quan introduces herself as the candidate who would be the first woman elected as mayor in Oakland’s history. Oakland and Los Angeles are the only major California cities never to have had a female mayor. Oakland’s most serious female mayoral candidate to date was Nancy Nadel, District 3’s representative on the City Council. She ran in 2006, but finished a distant third in the Democratic primary behind Dellums and fellow council member Igancio de la Fuente.

Quan says her attention to schools and public safety has always helped her among female voters, who make up more than 53 percent of Oakland’s electorate. “There are a lot of women activists in this neighborhood [Rockridge], a lot of strong women that are very civically involved, and they’re very interested in having a woman mayor,” Quan says. “And a lot of working-class Chinese women and African-American women like the idea of a woman mayor in Oakland.”

A fifth-generation Chinese-American who helped found the UC Berkeley Ethnic Studies Program in the 60s, Quan also believes she can appeal to Asian-American voters, who make up close to 10 percent of Oakland’s electorate. “People know who I am and are proud of the idea that I would be the first Asian-American mayor. It’s going to be history-making,” she says.

Catherine Lew, an Oakland-based political consultant who is not advising either Perata or Quan, says both candidates have advantages with certain voters, but will need to appeal to all of Oakland’s constituencies to win the race for mayor. “It’s important for both candidates to appeal to their core constituencies,” Lew says. “Jean will want to maximize her voter base in District 4, among women, and among voters of color, particularly Asian-Americans. For Perata, he should look to Districts 1 and 2. But any candidate will have to run a citywide race.”

Quan and her husband Floyd Huen prepare to campaign on Claremont Avenue in Rockridge

Perata campaign manager Larry Tramutola says his candidate has represented large and diverse sections of Oakland in the State Senate and has shown he can win among a wide array of Oakland voters. “Oakland is made up of a lot of different neighborhoods and ethnic groups, and any candidate is going to have to reach out to all of them,” Tramutola says. “I think Don is in a better position to do that than Jean is. Don’s history of working with the African-American community, the Hispanic community, the Asian community—they will serve him well.”

Regardless of how these electoral coalitions shape up, Quan says she knows Oakland better than any other candidate after her two decades on the School Board and City Council. She points out that Oakland’s mayors dating back to the late 1970s—Lionel Wilson, Elihu Harris, Jerry Brown and Dellums—did not have direct experience in Oakland city government. Quan says she believes that Oakland voters are ready for a change in this regard and will want a mayor who has direct experience at City Hall, rather than name recognition and star power based on connections in Sacramento and Washington D.C. “Over 20 years, I’ve worked in every neighborhood, visited every school, visited every library,” Quan says. “I know a lot of people and have a sense of the city that would be refreshing for a mayor to have.”

Quan’s campaign co-chair, Oakland State Assembly Representative Sandre Swanson, says the councilwoman’s on-the-ground, hands-on style will appeal to Oakland citizens who want active stewardship from their mayor.

“Jean gets her energy from the neighborhoods,” Swanson says. “We now have a situation in Oakland where people want positive change that is going to affect their lives in the neighborhood. I think that given her background—that she’s come through the school board and is passionately concerned about our children, and now with her time in City Hall— she’ll pay very close attention to all those things that make Oakland a much more functional city.”

Yet Oakland voters may reject Quan precisely because 20 years on the School Board and City Council have given her a long voting record on controversial measures involving the city budget, public safety and school funding. It is perhaps no coincidence that it’s been 50 years since an Oakland City Council member won a mayor’s race. But Quan said she’s a “known commodity with a long track record” and will run on her record at the two city agencies.

Perata and Quan are the only two major candidates in the race thus far. Mayor Dellums’ spokesman Paul Rose confirmed the mayor will make an announcement about his election plans “at an appropriate time” between now and the August filing deadline. It’s also unclear whether any of Quan’s colleagues on City Council or other Oakland politicians will enter the race.

The presence of other candidates in the race may matter more this year than in the past, since for the first time Oakland’s mayor will be elected in November under instant-runoff voting (IRV). This system eliminates the party primaries that usually happen in June and instead allows each voter in November to rank her three top choices rather than voting only for her top candidate.

IRV’s potential impact on the outcome of the mayor’s race remains uncertain, especially with the number of candidates still unsettled. But IRV will likely make it harder for a more established candidate to win a plurality of votes by dividing and conquering his lesser-known opposition. Candidates who might not win a head-to-head race with a well-financed established politician like Perata may have a better chance of winning under IRV if candidates and their supporters engage in more coalition-building and horse-trading than usual as the election nears—a sort of “I’ll vote for your candidate if you’ll vote for mine” discussion as people head to the polling station.

It will also now matter whether each candidate is a voter’s second or third choice, which makes it harder for politicians to write off voters who aren’t enthusiastic supporters. “Normally, 60 percent of the electorate know who they don’t want,” Swanson said. “In a situation like that, a combination of people that decide on their first and second choices will ensure that the right person wins.”

Quan says she can’t think about whether other candidates are going to enter the race at this point. “If I started thinking about that, I never would have started my campaign. I just have to keep going,” she says. She does say, however, that she’ll be keeping a close eye on how the City’s public ethics committee rules on whether mayoral candidates can accept a maximum of $600 or $1,200 in donations from individuals during the mayor’s race. She believes a $600 threshold would make the playing field more even.

The skies turned to black by 7 p.m. on this evening of campaigning, bringing an end Quan’s swing through this North Oakland neighborhood. She insists she’ll be back again soon and expects to do much more campaigning once Daylight Savings time begins in June. “I can walk from 10 o’clock in the morning until 9 at night in the summer,” she says. “We’ll be out there that long.”

Photos courtesy of Congo SQ West, Rita Daniels and Rara Tou Limen.

“When anyone talks about East Bay graffiti, everybody knows Mike DREAM,” said a long-time friend, Vinny Rodit. “He always helped inspire other kids with his art.”

In the seventh grade, DREAM and his friends got into hip hop and started seeking out mural space in the streets. Their adventures eventually took them to a red brick warehouse in Alameda where DREAM started his first masterpiece. It was the development of his signature, huge block letters that spelled out his tag, although the word “DREAM” itself is hardly legible unless you follow each curve of the paint. A crown sits above the “R,” appropriate for the “King of Graf” as supporters came to call him. A simple “TDK” rests on the bottom of the “D” — a reference to one of the grafitti artist crews he led.

But the real artistry is behind the name. In a notebook sketch reprinted on a fan website, “DREAM” is surrounded by camouflage. A stream of blood flows from the arrow at the bottom of the “E,” which looks like a pipe, oozing and fading into a red sky permeated by tanks. Barbed wire frames the shot and a note, “Battle Drills for a Bloody Revolution!” is scribbled in the corner.

DREAM was born in Vallejo. He was known amongst friends as a verbal and visual master, charismatic and rebellious. Outside of graffiti, DREAM was an accomplished tattooist at Built to Last in East Oakland, and did works on canvas and paper for various record labels. He became a leader of TDK (Those Damn Kids) and TSF (Taller Sin Fronteras) crews and was featured in numerous exhibitions including No Justice No Peace, an anti-police brutality art expose held annually.

The TDK Crew was notorious for tags around Oakland and the larger Bay Area. The group would spray tags surrounded by intricate backgrounds.

Every year in February, graffiti artists gather here at the club in Oakland for “Dream Day” to celebrate their historic culture and remember DREAM. Murals line the walls. Black notebooks float through the crowd as writers of all ages write their tags and fill the pages with signatures and drawings.

“Piece Books,” an old-school term short for “masterpiece,” are a tradition at these events. They are personal sketch books writers keep before putting up tags in public spaces. At “Dream Day,” writers have others tag their books to gather different styles.

“Blame,” 19, dressed in all black and wearing a wide grin on his face, picked up the permanent maker and scratched his tag on a fresh piece of white paper. He spoke with extreme enthusiasm as if overwhelmed by the spirit of hip hop and his place as one of thousands of writers. “Graffiti’s always been my art. That’s what I drive myself with. My whole lifestyle is the culture of this place,” he said. “Our culture is very united.”

Under the roof of the New Parish, the atmosphere was one of joy. Two eight-year-old boys wowed the crowd with their breakdancing in front of a stage where local DJs includng Apollo, ShortKut, Sake One, Fuze and Myke One displayed beat-boxing techniques and ended each segment with a shout out to the memory of DREAM.

The New Parish collected $10 donations at the door to benefit DREAM’s only son, Akil, now 10, who lost his mother to breast cancer in January. “I do it every year because it’s someone who changed my life and brought energy and love to the city of Oakland,” said Marty Aranaydo, the event’s organizer. “His son should know how important his father was. It’s more important than how his father was taken from him.”

Garcia, founder of the East Oakland Boxing Association, died last Friday. Although he never married he was far from alone, and on Thursday afternoon at his memorial at Lake Chalet on Lake Merritt, the tributes poured in. His apartment on East 7^th Street was a “hub” for family and friends, said nephew Danny Garcia—his door was always open but, most importantly, so was his gym.

In Stanley Garcia’s own experience, boxing breathed life, maturity, and hope into the lives of young boys. His younger brother, Eddie Garcia, said they grew up with the sport, that it “opened doors into prosperity.”

“You learned the skills of living through boxing,” Eddie said. “You have to learn to control your temper in a fight and the best chance you have is to box clever.”

Stanley Garcia was born in 1940 in Peralta, New Mexico. The family moved to the Bay Area when he was 10, during what Eddie describes as the “tail end of the Grapes of Wrath” in San Jose, and spent summers in Santa Cruz picking fruit. He was the eighth out of nine children and grew up on the streets of East Oakland. To escape their treacherous surroundings, the boys found boxing. It was a way to fight without engaging in the violence of their community, Eddie Garcia remembers, and it taught them to eat right and stay in shape. He remembers the 2.5-mile run the boys would do around Lake Merritt, appropriately the backdrop of Thursday’s ceremony.

Following in the footsteps of his older brother Art, Stanley became the strong side of what Oakland came to know as “the Garcia brothers.” At the top of their game in the late 50s early 60s, the boys were always touted as the top of the card at local venues such as the Ringside Boxing Club, the Oakland Auditorium, the Oakland Army Terminal, the San Francisco Civic Auditorium, and Pier Six. In 1959, Stanley Garcia won a Golden Gloves Championship for his weight class and represented California in the Ohio-based National Championships.

But that was just the early years; Garcia’s true legacy was what he brought to the inner city kids of East Oakland. His contemporaries remember him going door-to-door from 1984 to 1987 to ask for contributions of start-up cash to open his gym, which now goes by E.O.B.A Smartmoves, on 98^th Avenue. Throughout the 23 years of the boxing association’s existence he would apply for grants and be supported in a large part by the East Oakland Community Foundation.

When the gym opened in 1987 it was equipped not only with boxing equipment but with computers as well. Homework always came first. The gym was a place to develop your mind as well as your body. Stanley was more than just a coach. He was a life coach as well, according to accolades given by close friends at the ceremony.

Friends and family remember Stanley as grumpy but generous. He was serious about boxing, but he had a soft side for children, be they nieces and nephews or the kids that crawled into the gym after school, and they often drained his wallet: he was known to always be good for a handout. At the memorial service, Rev. Dr. Arlene Nehring of the Eden United Church of Christ called Garcia “a dedicated servant to the community.”

Mentees and protégés at the service remembered the long hours of maintenance repairs at the gym. When Garcia held tournaments for his young fighters, his family would work the hot dog stands and usher in the crowds and Garcia would stand proudly in the middle in a three-piece suit—the master orchestrator.

Garcia is credited with having founded an organization that has touched the lives of 50,000 kids from East Oakland. In 1991 and 1992, the gym was selected to host the Junior Olympics and it continues to thrive. “Stanley was simple in his approach but he achieved miracles,” said one gym patron at the service.

Garcia ran the gym until about three months ago, when he had a stroke and started looking into assisted living homes in Santa Cruz. He passed away at the age of 69.

On the cloudy day of the memorial, Lake Merritt was still. Inside the boathouse, friends and family admired a collage of old photos of Garcia and his “kids.” People embraced with joy in their eyes as if grateful that Garcia had brought them together. At the front of the room was a recent photograph of Garcia framed with flowers and a candle. A blow-up poster of a boxing tournament with his name on the bill was set up to the left of the podium. For the most part the tributes brought laughter and warmth but when the young poet got up to speak there was not a dry eye in the house.

A long time ago, the young man in the pressed suit said, he was afraid. Garcia told him to look at the eyes of everybody in the crowd and fill himself with that fear and then fight his way through it. True he’d end up with a few bloody noses—one broken nose that Garcia himself would set back into place in the gym shower. But ultimately, he said, a fight would be won.

The homicide investigation into the disappearance of Fremont boy Hasanni Campbell continues amid reports that his foster parents have left the area. On Tuesday, The Oakland Tribune reported that Louis Ross and Jennifer Campbell had moved out of their Fremont rental home a month ago, and that Ross may be in Arizona. The article stated that Jennifer Campbell’s mother, Pamela Clark, does not know where she is.

John Burris, the Oakland attorney who had been advising the couple, said he was unaware they have allegedly left the area. “I know nothing,” he said. “I didn’t know they were gone.”

Missing Fremont child Hasanni Campbell. Photo courtesy Oakland Police Department

Press spokesman Officer Jeffrey Thomason of the Oakland Police Department could not comment on what impact the departure could have on police proceedings because “the case is still under investigation,” he said.

Hasanni Campbell, who has cerebral palsy, has been missing since August 10, 2009. Ross claimed Hasanni went missing when he left the boy in a car behind Shuz, a Rockridge shoe store on College Avenue, where Jennifer Campbell worked. So far, the OPD has released no evidence linking the boy to that location. The couple was arrested on suspicion of murder Aug. 28, but was released when prosecutors declined to file charges against them.

The Citizens for the Lost Society, a local group that helps search for missing people, is planning a rally in front of the Oakland Police Department on February 10, the six-month anniversary of Campbell’s disappearance. Sheri-Lyn Miller, a San Leandro print-shop owner, helped found the group after she began donating t-shirts and flyers to help find missing persons. Miller estimates the rally will draw a crowd of 100 to 150 people, including city council members and supporters of Oscar Grant, the Hayward man shot and killed by a BART police officer on January 1, 2009.

Participants are invited to come make signs for the rally at Miller’s San Leandro print shop on Saturday, February 6 between 12 and 6 p.m.

Miller has not had contact with either Ross or Jennifer Campbell “since Louis Ross was released from jail about four months ago,” she said. “They should be looking for him. They haven’t been.”

Even though the OPD classified the case as a homicide, rather than a missing persons case, back in August, Miller still encourages people to look for the boy, who would now be six years old. “He was a ward of the state,” said Miller. “He is everyone’s responsibility. Everyone with a car should have a flyer for him taped in their window.”

The Oakland Police Department Crime Stoppers reward for finding Campbell is $75,000.  Anyone with information regarding the case can call the Oakland Police Department at (510) 777-8572 or (510) 777-3211.

Miller’s print shop is located at 15976 E. 14th St. in San Leandro

It was a night of celebration for Wells, but the decoration of Well’s campaign party seemed less than festive. There were no colorful balloons or flags, only a “Laura Wells for Governor” banner hanging on the wall of the stage where the candidate would later make a speech. Wells was in a plain black suit with her hair immaculately groomed, busily circling the restaurant and introducing herself to people nibbling on chips and light snacks, including a hardcore Green Party member who had colored his mustache green.

This year was actually supposed to mark Wells’ third bid for the position of State Controller, she said. Wells gained 420,000 votes in the 2002 election, more than any other Green Party candidate has earned in a partisan statewide race. But this year, she said she decided to run for governor because the governor gets to decide more than a state controller. “I thought I would follow the money, but I decided to fix the money,” Wells said.

An Oakland resident for more than thirty years, Wells’ platform covers everything from the economy to education, health care, energy and climate policy. But her biggest focus is on making changes to Proposition 13. According to Wells, the root of California’s misery lies in the anti-tax measure, which passed in 1978 when property taxes skyrocketed because of significant land appreciation. This is a problem, Wells says, because Proposition 13 made it hard to raise taxes today by requiring a 2/3 vote of the Californian legislature to approve them. It only requires a simple majority to lower them.

The current tax system, Wells says, is a burden on middle- and lower-income households. Sales tax was raised to almost ten percent last year. As for income tax, Wells says, the wealthiest five percent of the state’s residents pay 7 cents for every dollar they earn while the poorest twenty percent pay 12 cents for every dollar they make. Wells wants to reform Proposition 13 to make it easier for the state to raise money for education and other needs. “If we keep the good part of Proposition 13 and fix the bad part, we should have enough revenue for education,” Wells says.

She is also against issuing bonds. She says it is like saying, “We want it, but we don’t want to pay for it, so let’s put it on credit, and have our children and grandchildren pay.”

On the health care front, Wells is a strong supporter of a single-payer system, which she believes will insure all Californians and push down the cost of treatment. She says over 20 percent of California residents are currently uninsured and everybody should have affordable medical care. As a governor, Wells promised that she would sign SB 840, the single-payer system bill, which Governor Schwarzenegger vetoed.

When it comes to clean energy, Wells opposes nuclear fusion power and carbon sequestration. She prefers localized electricity generation. She argues that renewable sources such as solar or wind will allow people in the community to control energy production and eventually lower its cost, without being dependent on big energy corporations.

Her supporters expect that Wells’ gubernatorial bid may attract supporters among those fed up with Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s handling of state politics or those who feel that President Barack Obama has shifted to the political center. They also hope her bid will bring attention to Proposition 13, which neither Republican nor Democratic candidates have been willing to talk about reforming. “Laura put out some positive real hopes, not ‘hope’ in quotes,” said Green Party member and Fairfax town vice mayor Larry Bragman, during a speech at the kick-off party.  

Some see this election as a good time for the Green Party. Last week the Supreme Court threw out regulations that prohibited corporations from buying campaign commercials that explicitly advocate the election or defeat of candidates. “The Green Party does not take any corporate funding. Once people realize how significant it is, they might listen to us more closely,” said Woody Hastings, Sonoma County resident, who owns a green business.

Tim Laidman, a member of the Green Party County Council in Contra Costa County, agreed, saying that people were disappointed that the Obama administration bailed out big banks. “Our small-business-oriented mission would appeal to both traditional and liberal people now,” said Laidman.

Statewide, there are currently 33 elected officials who belong to the Green Party, including the mayor of Richmond, Gayle McLaughlin.

Wells is less well-known than other gubernatorial candidates including former Oakland Mayor and state governor Jerry Brown, who is also the incumbent Attorney General, or Meg Whitman, former Chief Executive Officer of eBay, who is running for the Republican Party. But Wells does not seem intimated or overconfident. Wells says a political campaign is about talking to people with respect. “We might not know everything, but people do understand if we explain. I would really like to make people understand how fixing Proposition 13 can make a difference,” said Wells.

But imagine watching the rest of the season with Brown parked on the sidelines. After a transfer from Nevada boarding school Findlay Prep over winter break, Brown’s eligibility to play in the Oakland section of the California Intramural Federation (CIF) was brought into question after his second game on January 6.

For three games, Brown and his parents waited on the bleachers for word to come down from the top. Finally, Michael Moore, the commissioner of the CIF’s Oakland section, ruled in favor of Brown. The decision seemed to appease everyone, Wildcat fans, CIF commissioners and coaches alike.  “He would be a welcome addition to any high school in the country,” said Moore. “Oakland High is glad that he’s home.”

Friday, Brown will finally feel at home on the hardwood of Oakland High when the Wildcats take on Oakland Tech, a relief after an uncomfortable ordeal that Moore says, after speaking with Brown and his family after last Friday night’s Wildcat victory, the young man took in stride. “He had zero attitude about the whole thing,” Moore recalled.

It began when the commissioner of the North Coast Section, Gil Lemmon, brought it to Moore’s attention that the Oakland Athletic League may have overlooked a technicality regarding Brown’s residency status. According to Lemmon, he took action to avoid a “domino of forfeitures,” which would wreck the entire season for the league by discrediting and perhaps eliminating one of the best teams in the league.

Brown transferred from Richmond’s Salesian High School to Findlay, near Las Vegas, after last summer. To transfer to and be eligible to play in the Bay Area again, Brown had to both change his residency status and file a hardship waiver, which allows students to make transfers when a situation arises that is beyond a student’s control. The family is not disclosing what reason compelled Brown to make his final transfer, but a waiver was submitted. Upon review of the waiver and approval from the CIF, the matter was cleared away.

Brown doesn’t come out completely unscathed. The commission is capping his season a couple of games short. Due to some funky math, the maximum amount of time Brown will see for the rest of the regular season is five games—though it looks as though the team, which currently sits at the top of the Oakland league, will ultimately make the postseason. High school boys in California are allowed to participate in 26 games during the regular season. With the two opening games already accounted for in Oakland, and 19 previously played at Findlay, Brown will have to miss two more games.

Theodore B. Olson, a prominent conservative litigator and a veteran of many Supreme Court arguments for the Bush Administration, went right to the point when questioning his client in a tense federal courtroom yesterday.

“Marriage is about making a public commitment to the world, to my partner, to our friends and family,” said Sandra Stier, 47, of Berkeley. “It’s the way we tell them and each other that this is a lifetime commitment. We can tell them, ‘We are married; she is my spouse.’”

The opening day of testimony in Perry v. Schwarzenegger featured vivid personal testimony from Stier and her partner, Kristin Perry, 46, chronicling their self-identification as lesbians and daily struggles with discrimination based on sexual orientation. Their testimony on the public and private role of married life, along with testimony from a male couple from Los Angeles, was an emotional beginning to the first challenge to a state’s same-sex marriage ban in federal court.

The three-week trial challenging California’s Proposition 8, the voter-approved constitutional amendment denying same-sex couples the right to marry, will be closely watched by gay rights groups and supporters of traditionally defined marriage nationwide. More than a hundred opponents of Proposition 8 gathered outside the courthouse Monday morning to voice their support for the challenge.

“There has been a large movement and we’ve made great strides, but we are still in the same place in many ways,” said Kate Baldridge, standing with her partner Elizabeth Chase outside the Philip Burton Federal Court Building. “I see this as a way for the government to protect minority rights.”

Just before the start of the trial, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a temporary stay blocking the trial’s broadcast on YouTube. The high court is expected to rule on the internet broadcast on Wednesday. Interest in the case was so high that the court opened a second room to accommodate the overflow of spectators and reporters.

Judge Vaughn R. Walker, who is hearing the case in U.S. District Court without a jury, listened as the lawyers for the plaintiffs sketched the struggle in human terms, asking their clients to describe what it means to be a homosexual and how they live in committed relationships while being denied the right to marry.

Olson’s co-lead attorney, David Boies, a prominent litigator who argued against Olson before the Supreme Court in the 2000 Bush v. Gore case, posed pointed questions about the nature of sexual self-identity, asking his clients how long they had been gay.

“As long as I can remember,” replied Paul Katami, 37, a manager at a Southern California exercise club. He described his coming out process as a gradual opening up to trusted family and friends.

“I never wanted to sit someone down and present this serious problem,” Katami said. “I always told myself that I would come out in a way that would be exemplary to who I was.”

Jeffrey Zarrillo, 36, Katami’s partner of nine years, also testified against Proposition 8. Zarillo said marriage had a special meaning for him, and that he and Katami had no other desire than to sanctify their relationship in the eyes of the state and bring about the legal stability to raise a family.

“Marriage indicates to strangers that these individuals are serious,” Zarillo said. “[That] these people are committed to each other; that they have taken that step that one hopes will last the rest of their lives.”

“I love him more than I love myself. I would do anything for him.” Zarillo added, his voice breaking. “I want nothing more than to marry him.”

Fifty-three percent of Californians voted in November 2008 to deny Zarillo that right, but Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Attorney General Jerry Brown have declined to defend Proposition 8 in federal court. In the state’s absence, several organizations devoted to the protection of traditional marriage have organized forces to defend the constitutional ban.

Attorney Charles J. Cooper, arguing in support of Proposition 8 for the group Protect Marriage, stressed that a redefinition of marriage by the courts would weaken what he argued was the central societal purpose of marriage: “To channel the naturally procreative sexual activity of men and women into stable unions.”

Judge Walker asked Cooper how same-sex rights would alter marriage as it has been traditionally defined. Cooper argued that permission for same-sex unions would move the intent of marriage away from primarily procreation toward a private relationship designed simply to provide adult couples with “personal fulfillment.”

“If the institution is ‘de-institutionalized,’ as the scholars say, as is gradually happening now, then it will very likely lead to very real social harms, such as lower marriage rates, and higher rates of divorce and non-marital cohabitation,” Cooper said.

Cooper also argued that Californians have been “generous” in providing the rights and benefits of domestic partnerships, which he said include “virtually all of the substantive legal protections” given to married couples.

“The evidence will show that California’s gay and lesbian community has substantial political power and that California is strongly supportive of gay and lesbian rights,” he said.

Frank and Joe Capley-Alfano listen to speeches during Monday's rally outside Federal Court

From the start, the legal team opposing Proposition 8 sought to cast doubt on the sufficiency of domestic partnerships as a substitute for marriage. Calling marriage “the most important relation in life,” Olson declared in his opening statement that Proposition 8 violated a central right to marry that was implicit in the U.S. constitution.

Olson argued that the evolution of marriage to accommodate same-sex couples will not harm, but rather will “fulfill” the institution. “The history of marriage has evolved,” he said. “It has changed to shed irrational, unwarranted and discriminatory limitations that reflected the biases and prejudices of the past. Those changes have not harmed the institution of marriage.”

In answering questions from Judge Walker on the use of the term “domestic partnership,” Stier said the legal arrangement did not reflect their relationship in an accurate way.

“We have a loving, committed relationship,” she said. “We are not business partners, nor social partners, nor roommates.”

Stier said being able to say she and Perry are married would provide her with more of a sense of inclusion in society.

“It would make me feel our relationship is more respected,” she said. “It would prevent me from feeling our family isn’t good enough.”

Judge Walker asked Protect Marriage attorney’s Cooper how California had been able to accommodate the eventual elimination of restrictions on blacks marrying whites, yet could not accept the same for two people of the same sex.

Racial restrictions were never a “definitional” feature of the institution of marriage, Cooper said, and as a product of white supremacist doctrine were therefore unconstitutional.

“The limitation of marriage to a man and a woman is something that has been universal,” Cooper said. “It has been across history, across customs, across society. The loathsome restrictions based on race are of an entirely different nature.”

As the day progressed, the plaintiffs’ lawyers called to the stand Nancy F. Cott, a Harvard historian who specializes in the history of marriage in America. Attorney Theodore Boutros sought Cott’s opinion on Cooper’s statements about the universality of heterosexual marriage.

“It’s inaccurate, based on my understanding of the history of marriage,” Cott said.

Cott’s testimony, which will continue Tuesday, explored the competing private and public interests in controlling the basic ability to say, “I do.”

“Most people tend not to realize that, in marrying, one is exercising a right of freedom,” Cott said. “They think of it as a private choice and tend not to articulate the civil right aspect of it. It is only for those who cannot marry at all that the right to marry becomes an expression of one’s right to choose.”

At a press conference after proceedings adjourned, Andy Pugno, general counsel for Protect Marriage, characterized the ultimate question in the case as which group in American politics gets to define the nature of marriage for the rest of society.

“We believe that when it comes to a social institution that permeates our culture and our government, ultimately the people, through their government, should have the final say about what marriage means,” Pugno said.

In his remarks during the press conference, Olson reiterated the argument that same-sex unions are part of the gradual evolution of the institution of marriage. He cited the Supreme Court’s 1967 decision in Loving v. Virginia, which declared prohibitions against interracial marriage unconstitutional, as a hopeful example for the outcome of this case.

“Forty years ago, the Supreme Court of the U.S. struck down the Virginia statue which prohibited interracial marriages,” Olson said. “Today, people can’t imagine that that time ever existed. We believe that forty years from now, or hopefully sooner than that, people will look back and say, ‘What were they thinking?’”

Live updates of Perry v. Schwarzenegger available at firedoglake.com.

There’s one unescapable reality Franklin seems to have missed: laundry. Here’s a video journal from North Oakland’s Piedmont neighborhood, chronicling the local institution that brings so many of us serendipitously together: the laundromat.